that the moral infection came by way of physical agency, as a
rusty scabbard infects and defiles a bright sword when sheathed therein:
it might be," he thought, "by way of natural concomitancy, as Estius
will have it; or, to speak as Dr. Reynolds doth, by way of ineffable
resultancy and emanation." As this was perfectly unintelligible, it
seemed to satisfy my new friend. I added, however, that, like herself, I
was waiting for more light on the difficulty, and might set myself to it
in right earnest, when I found it fully demonstrated that the Creator
could not, or did not, make man equally the descendant in soul as in
body of the original progenitors of the race. I believed, with the great
Mr. Locke, that he could do it; nor was I aware he had anywhere said
that what he could do in the matter he had not done. Such was the first
of many strange conversations with the maniac, who, with all her sad
brokenness of mind, was one of the most intellectual women I ever knew.
Humble as were the circumstances in which I found her, her brother, who
was at this time about two years dead, had been one of the best-known
ministers of the Scottish Church in the Northern Highlands. To quote
from an affectionate notice by the editor of a little volume of his
sermons, published a few years ago--the Rev. Mr. Mackenzie of North
Leith--"he was a profound divine, an eloquent preacher, a
deeply-experienced Christian, and, withal, a classical scholar, a
popular poet, a man of original genius, and eminently a man of prayer."
And his poor sister Isabel, though grievously vexed at times by a dire
insanity, seemed to have received from nature powers mayhap not inferior
to his.

We were not always engaged with the old divines; Isabel's tenacious
memory was stored with the traditions of the district; and many an
anecdote could she tell of old chieftains, forgotten on the lands which
had once been their own, and of Highland poets, whose songs had been
sung for the last time. The story of the "Raid of Gillie-christ" has
been repeatedly in print since I first heard it from her: it forms the
basis of the late Sir Thomas Dick Lander's powerful tale of "Allan with
the Red Jacket;" and I have seen it in its more ordinary traditionary
dress, in the columns of the _Inverness Courier_. But at this time it
was new to me; and on no occasion could it have lost less by the
narrator. She was herself a Mackenzie; and her eyes flashed a wild fire
when she spoke of th